Like a long fuse leading to a stick of dynamite, a relatively easy and calm 184.5-kilometer Stage 11 exploded at the end, with an aggressive sprint in the final meters that saw HTC-Columbia’s Mark Cavendish win his third stage of the 2010 Tour de France and his 13th overall (the most of any active racer). It also resulted in the expulsion from the race of Cavendish’s teammate and leadout man Mark Renshaw, who during the leadout to the line headbutted Garmin rider Julian Dean and appeared to squeeze Garmin’s sprinter Tyler Farrar toward the barriers. Once again, Lance Armstrong rode in relative anonymity, losing more time to the leaders but suffering no major change to his place in the overall standings when he finished in a group of five 29 seconds behind the field.

Off the bike, of course, Armstrong has been getting all sorts of attention—for what he’s saying. Our Boulder Report blogger Joe Lindsey examines the latest turmoil related to Floyd Landis’s allegations of widespread drug use among Armstrong’s teams, and The New York Times’s Bob Mackey has a good, balanced roundup here.

All this talk about Armstrong talking reminded me how, even on a stage like today’s, the seven-time Tour champion is not just riding along as quietly as the results imply. Especially now that he’s no longer a contender for the podium, Armstrong will be acting like a captain-on-the-road, a rolling strategist and pedaling team director. I got to see this in action on Stage 16 last year, when I was in the Astana team car while working on the book that chronicled Armstrong’s comeback, Tour de Lance. Here’s an excerpt: